Kalpana (Uday Shankar, 1948)

Uday Shankar in Kalpana

Cast: Uday Shankar, Amala Shankar, Lakshmi Kanta, G.V. Subbarao, Birendri Banerji, Swaraj Mitter Gupta, Anil Kumar Chopra, Brijo Behari Banerji, Chiranjilal Shah, Devilal Samar, K. Mukerjee. Screenplay: Uday Shankar. Cinematography: K. Ranoth. Production design: A.K. Sekar. Film editing: N.K. Gopal. Music: Vishnudas Shirali.

Uday Shankar's phantasmagoric, angry, joyous, often baffling Kalpana is the ultimate dance musical, recalling everything from Busby Berkeley's pattern-making choreography to the expressionist visions of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). It was Shankar's only film, and it's easy to see why: It's exhaustive and exhausting. The flood of dance sequences occurs in a flashback within a frame story about Udayan, played by Shankar, trying to persuade a box office minded producer to make a film based on his life work. He's doomed to failure because the producer thinks only of money, which Udayan has learned to be an evil, though a necessary one. He has a vision of India as a cultural force, an independent leader of nations, emerging from its colonial past, though thwarted by capitalist greed. There's also a love story along with some intrigue and villainy in Kalpana, resulting in a narrative muddle, which may be why it was not a great success when it was initially released. However, its energy and imagination (which is one meaning of the Sanskrit word that gives the film its title) overcome its flaws.   
 

Two Girls on the Street (André De Toth, 1939)

Mária Tasnádi Fekete and Bella Bordy in Two Girls on the Street

Cast: Mária Tasnádi Fekete, Bella Bordy, Andor Ajtay, Piroska Vaszary, Gyula Csortos. Screenplay: André De Toth, based on a play by Tamás Emöd and Reszö Török. Cinematography: Károly Vass. Production design: Márton Vincze. Film editing: Zoltán Kerényi. Music: Szabolcs Fényes. 

In 1939, the Production Code was so rigidly enforced in Hollywood that David O. Seznick had to beg for an exemption that would allow Clark Gable to speak the word "damn" in Gone With the Wind. So for an example of what Hollywood movies might have been like if they hadn't been saddled with the Code's strictures, take a look at a film from Hungary that year, André De Toth's Two Girls on the Street. It begins with a young woman revealing, at a dinner party that celebrates an engagement, that the potential groom, who is marrying someone else, made her pregnant. Out of wedlock pregnancy would have been severely punished under the Code, but after the uproar, she moves to Budapest and gets an abortion -- one of the Code's severest taboos -- and goes to work in a night club as a violinist in an all-female orchestra. By the end of the film, she has become a celebrated concert violinist, hardly a punishment. Two Girls on the Street is a romantic melodrama whose plot feels familiar in many respects: The violinist befriends a waiflike young woman, and as they prosper they fall in love with the same man. But many of the details of the film feel like they come from another place and another time: The man they fall for was accused of sexually harassing the second woman, who also attempts suicide (another Code taboo) when she thinks she's lost him, but she's perfectly happy to wind up with him at the end of the movie. None of this is to suggest that Hungary was a better place to make movies at that time, of course. De Toth left it for Hollywood, where he became a second-tier director specializing in Westerns like The Gunfighter (1950) and films noir like Pitfall (1948) before moving into television; his best-known movie is House of Wax (1953), one of the first of the run of 3-D features in the 1950s. 

Muna Moto (Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa, 1975)

Arlette Din Bell in Muna Moto

Cast: Philippe Abia, Arlette Din Bell, Samuel Baongla, Catherine Biboum, David Endene, Gisèle Dikongué-Pipa. Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa. Cinematography: J.P. Delazay, J.L. Leon. Film editing: Andrée Davanture, Dominque Saint-Cyr, Jules Takam. Music: A.G.A.'Styl, Georges Anderson. 

Muna Moto, also known as The Child of Another, takes place in a village in Cameroon, where young Ngando (Philippe Abia) and Ndomé (Arlette Din Bell) have fallen in love. Ngando, however, can't afford the dowry Ndomé's father demands, so his rich uncle decides to take her as his fifth wife -- none of his other four wives have produced the child he wants. To forestall the uncle's plans, Ngando gets Ndomé pregnant, but the uncle is undeterred and takes her for his wife anyway and raises the child as his own. Ngando's struggle to claim his daughter and to reunite with Ndomé is the driving force of a film about the heavy hand of tradition, a universal theme in a setting unfamiliar to most of us. Director Jean-Pierre Dikongué makes the most of that setting, a place where nature and human beings tenuously co-exist. 

Chess on the Wind (Mohammad Reza Aslani, 1976)

Shohreh Aghdashloo, Fakhri Khorvash, and Aghajan Rafii in Chess of the Wind

Cast: Fakhri Khorvash, Mohama Ali Keshavarz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Akbar Zanjanpour, Shahram Golchin, Hamid Taati, Aghajan Rafii, Annik Shefrazian. Screenplay: Mohammad Reza Aslani. Cinematography: Houshang Baharlou. Art direction: Houri Etesam. Film editing: Abbas Ganjavi. Music: Sheyda Gharachedaghi. 

Made, released, and almost immediately suppressed in a country in the throes of revolutionary change, Mohammad Reza Aslani's Chess on the Wind is one of those films that are almost more interesting for the history of their survival than for their content. Which is not to say that the film isn't impressive in itself: It's visually and aurally exceptional, in the opulence of its setting, an old mansion in Tehran, and the score using antique instruments by Sheyda Gharachedaghi. It also makes some strong points about the oppression of women, even including some queer content that was one of the reasons for its suppression. After its initial showing, the film completely disappeared for 38 years -- even its director had no prints of it -- until a complete negative was discovered by the director's son in an old shop in a suburb of Tehran. Viewers may find it a little slowly paced and sometimes enigmatic in motives and relationships, but Aslani's mastery of filmmaking is evident. It's worth watching the documentary The Majnoun and the Wind (Gita Aslani Shahrestani, 2022), made by the director's daughter and available with it on the Criterion Channel, for the film's full story.

Prisioneros de la Tierra (Mario Soffici, 1939)

Elisa Galvé and Ángel Galvaña in Prisioneros de la Tierra

Cast: Francisco Petrone, Ángel Galvaña, Elisa Galvé, Raúl De Lange, Roberto Fugazot, Homero Cárpeno. Screenplay: Ulises Petit de Murat, Dario Quiroga, based on stories by Horacio Quiroga. Cinematography: Pablo Tabernero. Production design: Ralph Pappier. Film editing: Gerardo Rinaldi. Music: Lucio Demare. 

In Hollywood, 1939 is often cited as a peak year, but the Argentine film Prisioneros de la Tierra, released the same year, holds its own in comparison with the American studio output. It's a story of abused workers in the Argentine jungles, with a grim conclusion that contrasts with the timid, feel-good resolutions of Hollywood. Granted, it too is sometimes a little more glossy than the subject warrants, with the casting of a pretty but limited actress, Elisa Galvé, in the key role of Andrea. who accompanies her alcoholic father (Raúl De Lange), a physician, on the trip to a labor camp. She falls in love with one of the workers, the dashing Estéban Podeley (Ángel Galvaña), while being pursued by the villain, Köhner (Francisco Petrone), the ruthless boss of the camp. Director Mario Soffici manages to overcome the by-the-numbers romance with a genuine feeling for the exploitation of indentured workers, aided greatly by Pablo Tabernero's use of light and shadow to create an oppressive mood in key scenes. Prisioneros de la Tierra is regarded as one of Argentina's greatest films, and at its best it justifies the acclaim.   

Behind Convent Walls (Walerian Borowczyk, 1978

Marina Pierro in Behind Convent Walls

Cast: Ligia Branice, Howard Ross, Marina Pierro, Gabriela Giacobbe, Rodolfo Dal Pra, Loredana Martinez, Mario Maranzana, Alex Partexano. Screenplay: Walerian Borowczyk, based on a book by Stendhal. Cinematography: Luciano Tovoli. Film editing: Walerian Borowczyk. Music: Sergio Montori. 

Nuns just wanna have fun, or so Walerian Borwczyk's Behind Convent Walls tells us. What forbids them from doing so is a stern Mother Superior, so when her back is turned they're up to all manner of rebellious behavior, the most lurid of which is perhaps the employment of a hand-carved dildo with an image of Jesus on one end. Ostensibly based on an essay in Stendhal's Promenades de Rome, Borowczyk's film is thought by some to rise above its soft-core prurience by virtue of some creative cinematography and its criticism of clerical celibacy and hypocrisy, but it seems to me not much more than a male fantasy about the lives of inaccessible women.  

Superman (James Gunn, 2025)

David Corenswet in Superman

Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Cathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, Alan Tudyk (voice), Bradley Cooper, Angela Sarafyan, Michael Rooker (voice), Pom Klementieff (voice), Maria Gabriela de Faría, Wendell Pierce, Neya Howell, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Zlatko Buric, Jake Tapper. Screenplay: James Gunn. Cinematography: Henry Braham. Production design: Beth Mickle. Film editing: Craig Alpert, William Hoy. Music: David Fleming, John Murphy. 

James Gunn's Superman begins in medias res, with only a minute or two of text on screen to summarize the well-known backstory of the title character. Gunn wastes no time establishing the hero's Kryptonian origins, his secret identity as Clark Kent (David Corenswet) and his relationships with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and his enemy Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). We begin simply with Superman getting the shit beat out of him, which is more than enough to get our attention. The problem with the film, however, is that Gunn takes the opportunity to dispense with the old background narrative and loads down the movie with new characters, off-beat relationships like Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio), multiple threats, and head-spinning sci-fi tropes like "pocket universes." What could have been an exhilarating new take on an old story instead becomes exhausting. Fortunately, Corenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult are skillful enough players to rise above the frenzy and bring some order to the chaos of ideas that Gunn throws at them. 

Countdown (Robert Altman, 1967)

James Caan in Countdown

Cast: James Caan, Joanna Moore, Robert Duvall, Barbara Baxley, Charles Aidman, Steven Ihnat, Michael Murphy, Ted Knight, Stephen Coit, John Rayner, Charles Irving, Bobby Riha. Screenplay: Loring Mandel, based on a novel by Hank Searls. Cinematography: William W. Spencer. Art direction: Jack Poplin. Film editing: Gene Milford. Music: Leonard Rosenman. 

Reality intervened to make Countdown obsolete within a few months after it was released, so that the scenes of the astronaut played by James Caan plodding across the lunar surface -- instead of bouncing on it as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would soon be seen doing -- look ridiculous. Countdown is watchable today mainly for the people involved with it who went on to better things. Caan and Robert Duvall were just a few years away from stardom thanks to The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), and even Ted Knight, who plays a NASA press relations man, would find a better journalistic role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970. But it was almost the undoing of its director, Robert Altman, who was fired by Warner Bros. for what became one of his signature techniques: overlapping dialogue. What energy and interest Countdown generates comes from Altman's ability to keep things moving, but he's saddled with a tired story about the space race with the usual cliches, including the astronaut's anxious wife, played woodenly by Joanna Moore. 

Undercurrent (Kozaburo Yoshimura, 1956)

Fujiko Yamamoto in Undercurrent

Cast: Fujiko Yamamoto, Ken Uehara, Eitaro Ozawa, Michiko Ai, Eijiro Tono, Kazuko Ichikawa, Michiko Ono, Kimiko Tachibana, Mineko Yorozuyo, Keiko Kawasaki. Screenplay: Sumie Tanaka, Hisao Sawano. Cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa. Art direction: Akira Naito. Film editing: Shigeo Nishida. Music: Sei Ikeno. 

Kozaburo Yoshimura's Undercurrent (aka Night River) is a romantic melodrama somewhat in the manner of Douglas Sirk, in which a strong woman is troubled by the expectations of the men in her life, including her father, her colleagues, her suitors, and her lover. Kiwa (Fujiko Yamamoto) has built a career as a textile designer when she meets a university professor, Takemura (Ken Uehara), whose wife is an invalid. Their relationship causes a mild scandal, and his wife's death awakens qualms of conscience in Kiwa, just as her career is reaching new levels of success. In an American "woman's picture" of the 1950s, which Undercurrent strongly resembles, the choice between love and career might have easily been resolved in favor of love, but the changes in the role of women in postwar Japan produce a distinctly different effect. Handsomely filmed by Kazuo Miyagawa in a muted palette in which splashes of primary color stand out vividly, Undercurrent benefits from Yamamoto's thoughtful, sensitive performance. 

Loving Couples (Mai Zetterling, 1964)

Harriet Andersson, Gio Petré, and Gunnel Lindblom in Loving Couples

Cast: Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Gio Petré, Anita Björk, Gunnar Björnstrand, Eva Dahlbeck, Jan Malmsjö, Lissi Alandh, Bengt Brunskog, Anja Boman, Åke Grönberg. Heinz Hopf. Screenplay: Mai Zetterling, David Hughes, based on a novel by Agnes von Krusentjerna. Cinematography: Sven Nykvist. Production design: Jan Boleslaw. Film editing: Paul Davies. Music: Roger Wallis. 

Mail Zetterling's first film as director, Loving Couples, almost collapses under the weight of exposition and subtext. It centers on three women about to give birth in a gloomy Swedish hospital in the first year of World War I. One of the women, Angela (Gio Petré), is unwed but doesn't care; another, Agda (Harriet Andersson), is married to a gay man who isn't the father, and is perfectly happy about it; the third, Adele (Gunnel Lindblom), is told that the child she's carrying, fathered by her husband, whom she doesn't love, is dead. All of them wound up in this condition on or about Midsummer's Eve on an opulent estate. The film first wanders back through their several girlhoods and then spends a good deal of time bringing us up to the day they were impregnated. The tone of the film ranges from giddy to gloomy as it explores religious bigotry, sexual freedom, societal hypocrisy, mindless militarism, and predatory behavior, among other topics. It almost flies apart at several of its narrative turns, but somehow Zetterling manages to hold it together.